I am a huge advocate of personal responsability and taking responsibility for my actions and finances. However, I believe the bank has an equal responsibility to charge the customer's transactions in the correct order, keep their online or ATM information up-to-date when it comes to charges they have immediate control over posting, charge reasonable fines, and finally (and most importantly) not allow the customer to withdraw/spend more than is available in the account.
My dad is retired social security recipient, a couple of weeks ago he went to the banks ATM, inquired what his balance was and got a print-out that said he had $391.00, he proceeded to withdraw $300.00. What he was unaware of was that he actually only had $282.00 because the remainder had a hold on it due to pending transactions. He had inquired online the day before and had noticed that these two transactions were pending and saw that this was reflected in his balance, why was it not reflected on the ATM a day later? He obviously would not have withdrawn 300 if it had said he only had $282.00.
This resulted in an overdraft fee, which was not posted until three days later, how is a person supposed to keep track of their finances if money that is being removed from THEIR account by THE BANK is not immediatly posted.
The next day (with what he thought was $91.00 balance but was actually $40.00 or so due to withheld money and $35 overdraft which he was still unaware of both online or at atm) he asked me to transfer $40.00 because he was expecting an online book and needed to withdraw $80.00. This obviously reflects his personal responsable to keep his account in positive numbers. He went online and saw that my transfer had gone through and went to the ATM, inquired what balance was, withdrew $80.00 after verifying that he had enough and got a printout saying he still had $40.00 in bank. However according to the bank he was already -$10.00 by then (if they know this how come he is unable to see this both online and ATM). This caused a second $35.00 bank fee. Why are bank fees immediately charged without appearing in the system, but immediate deposits are immediatly apparent in the system but not available to be spent.
I know this is all very confusing and hard to follow and the bank knows this too. They take advantage of their power and play convenience-games with defenseless customers. Whenever my dad has had problems customer service has always told him to use his online banking and verify charges, transactions, deposits, withdrawals, etc. To be sure of how much money he can dispose of. But when a problem occurs due to inaccurate, conflicting, or lagged information they bully the customer and tell them you have to use the little log book. First of all, in this day-and-age telling a customer that a little log book shoud be a better resourse than the internet is ridiculous. Also, in the case of my dad, even with the log book he would have gone into overdraft because he was not notified of the first $35.00 overdraft charge until three days later which is what through his finances completely off, not irresponsable spending as the bank claims.
If my dad always disposed of alot of money in his bank account this would not have affected him. But for those who are retired customers who live on a fixed income paycheck even a cup of coffee can cost more than three weeks of groceries for a $2.50 transaction due to bank fees. This is ridiculous, if the bank was so interested in a customer not withdrawing/spending more than is available instead of charging outrageous fees, when a customer tries to withdraw more than is available it would not be permitted!
My dad has (soon to be had) been a customer with BofA for 10 years where the fee for such accidents was only a reasonable $5 charge. He was never notified that this fee has been hiked up to an unreasonable and unaccountable (it doesn't even cost them 5 cents to account for overdrafts, it is all done by a computer) $35!
Three days later, and many customer service bullies later he has yet to be refunded the $105 (2 overdraft $35.00 fees, and one additional $35 extended overdraft fee). Whether or not he gets refunded this money he will be closing the account and switching to another bank where common sense is rewarded over banks where charges have a time advantage over deposits. As a result I will be switching banks too.
It is even more outrageous that this type of fraudulent and abusive behaviour is occuring after banks recieved millions of tax payer's dollars to bail them out, and they can't even bail out the customers overdrafts when it is the fault of their own system's glitches.
My dad asked the customer service supervisor both on the phone and at the bank for their agent for service of process and they didn't know what it was!
He will be taking this to small claims court, $105 is alot of money for a man that only recieves $500 a month.
One more note, when we talked to a bully customer service representative one of his "tips" was for us to apply for a BofA credit card so that if this would happen ever again it would go on the credit card instead of producing fees. Talk about "promoting" personal responsability, the bank isn't interested in helping customers be financially responsable, they just want to create more ways for us to increase debt and them to increase profits. The most annoying thing about these fees is that I AM LENDING THEM MY MONEY, not the other way around. I should be the one charging fees for their stupidity.
Baja kt
san ysidro, California
U.S.A.
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